CANCER: Summa cum laude

I LOVE this time of year. Graduation time. And, well ever since I graduated from college, I've tried to somehow find a way to experience graduation again and again. (I did when I obtained my Master's; but nada since...) As I look back over the highlights of my life, it truly was one of the first of many "best" days of my adult life.

And today, well I think I graduated again. That's right folks! I have made it to the 1.5 year mark in post treatment. I have graduated from doing 90 day checks to 6 months. Rather than ever 6 months, I will have CT scans annually. According to my blood work and those fancy, smart doctors, my cancer still sleeps and I am healthy. I am alive. The voice in my head keeps saying: "Not today. Today I live." And well, live I will. 

But today also made me think about all kinds of ways we experience life's milestones. I was sitting in Seattle Cancer Care Alliance- the place where just about every kind of human being goes for cancer treatment. (I mean- there were so many different languages being spoken that I honestly thought I was at the damn UN.) There were also so many different ways culture was being demonstrated, that I forgot for a minute that we were all there for cancer, so agog I was at watching it all- the tiny Hmong woman sitting in her chair with no shoes, the singing African woman, the chatty Ukrainian young women in their glittery jeans; and the African American women with their braids (ooohhhh....just you wait, sistas!) 


But I digress...

I also saw a man being wheeled out of the place. He was sitting upright in his wheelchair, apparently sleeping- head cocked to the side. Well, at least that's what my mind thought it saw. It wasn't until I saw his caretaker (wife?) walking slowly behind him (and the EMT tech), eyes wide with terror, fighting back tears, hand held over her mouth to stifle the apparent scream she wanted/needed to get out, that I realized, "Uh, that's not a nap. That dude is dead." Yes, he graduated onto that next phase of life- death. And his partner graduated into becoming a widow- and all that comes with that.

SCCA is no joke. It is not for the weak. Yet my ass always jumps when a code blue is announced. My brain immediately does a quick scan to make sure the code wasn't called for me. Honestly, I forget...

So no. This week many of us won't get our official, university consecrated, black robes and collars. And many of us won't feel the same kind of triumph that is usually associated with the word "graduation." We won't get to add any fancy titles behind our name- well except for maybe: Survivor, deceased or widow. But that still counts.

And for me- not today, cancer. Not today.